Fear That Man

viewplate. It was another almost-alive machine. He tensed with the sight of it. The single eye of the Scavenger focused on the body. On the console screen, there was a close-up of the stranger. The lens caught the face inside the helmet, and he was no longer sure it was a man.

There was a face with two eyes, but no eyebrows. Where the brows should have been, there were two bony ridges, hard and dark and glistening. A mane of brown hair streaked with white lay as a cushion about the head. The mouth was wide and generous, but definitely not the mouth of a man. The lips were a bit too red, and the teeth that stuck over them at two places were sharp, pointed, and very white. Still, it was more of a man than an animal. There was a look about the face that suggested soul-tortured agony, and that was very human indeed. He directed the Scavenger to begin retrieval.

When the machine had done this and was locked in place on the mother ship, he opened the floor hatch, drew up the body, and carefully unsuited it. The helmet bore the stenciled name HURKOS…

… He was in a great cathedral. The red tongues of candles flickered in their silver holders.

Belina was dead. No one died any longer, but Belina was dead. A rare case. The monster in her womb had slashed her apart. Nothing the doctors could do. When you can’t turn to blame other men, there is only one entity to blame: God. It was difficult finding a temple, for there were not many faithful these days. But he had found one now, complete with its holy water tainted with the sacrificial blood and its handful of ancient Christians — ancient because they refused the man-made immortality of the Eternity Combine: they grew old.

In the great cathedral…

In the great cathedral, clambering across the altar railing and clutching the feet of the great crucifix. On the kneecap, slipping, falling to the feet three times until the bruises blackened his arms beneath the thickly matted hair. Then, grasping at the loincloth, fingers hooked into the wooden folds, pulling himself up, weeping… A foot in the navel, shoving up… screaming into the ear… But the ear, after all, was wooden. The ear merely cast back his condemnations.

Candles flickered below.

He began swaying, using his weight to topple God. The head did not respond at first. He locked his arms more tightly about it. It began to sway. The head fell, crashing from the shoulders, down…

Then toppled the body.

He pushed away from it as it — and he — fell.

There were sirens and hospital attendants.

The last thing he remembered seeing was an old man, a Christian, cradled between the broken halves of God’s face, mumbling and content with his sanctuary…

He pulled himself away from Hurkos, shook his head. That had been the stranger’s dream. How had he experienced it?

Hurkos opened his eyes. They were chunks of polished coal, dark jewels threatening many secrets. His mouth was very dry, and when he tried to speak the corners of his lips cracked and spilled blood. The nameless man brought water. Finally: “It didn’t work, then.” Hurkos had a deep, commanding voice.

“What didn’t work? What were you doing out there?”

Hurkos smiled. “Trying to kill myself.”

“Suicide?”

“They call it that.” He sipped more water.

“Because Belina died?”

Hurkos bristled. “How did you…?” After a moment: “I guess I told you.”

“Yes. How could I hear your dreams like that?”

Hurkos looked puzzled for a moment. “I’m a telepath, of course. Sometimes I project, some rarer times I read thoughts. A very unstable talent. I project mostly when I’m asleep — or under pressure.”

“But how did you get out there without a ship?”

“After I was released from the hospital — after Belina’s death and the crucifix incident — I signed on the Space Razzle as a cargo handler. When we were relatively far out in untraveled space, I went into the hold, disconnected the alarms from the pressure chamber, and left. I won’t be missed until pay day.”

“But why not step out without a suit? That would be quicker.”

Hurkos smiled an unsmile. “I guess a little of the healing did take hold. I guess we can recover from anything.” But he did not look recovered. “Right now, my talent is fading. I can’t see a name in your mind.”

He hesitated. “You can’t see a name… because I have none.” Briefly, he recounted the story of the waking, the amnesia, the strangeness of the ship.

Hurkos was excited. Here was something in which he could submerge his grief, his melancholia. “We are going to make a real search of this tub, you and me. But first, you ought to have a name.”

“What?”

“How about — Sam?” He paused. “After a friend of mine.”

“I like it. Who was the friend?”

“A dog I bought on Callileo.”

“Thanks!”

“He was noble.”

With the preliminaries out of the way, Sam could no longer contain his curiosity. “We both have names now. We know I am a man — but what are you?”

Hurkos looked startled. “You don’t know what a Mue is?”

“No. I guess maybe I have been gone too long. Maybe I left before there were Mues around.”

“Then you left a thousand years ago — and you went damn far away!”

III

Hurkos came padding down the narrow corridor and into the main chamber. “Nothing at all!” he said, incredulous.

They had been searching for six hours, looking through and behind everything. Still, no clues. During the time they had pried about together, however, Sam had filled in a few gaps in his education; Hurkos had recounted the history of the Mues. Once, well over a thousand years before, man had tried to make other men with the aid of artificial wombs, large tanks of semi-hydroponic nature that took sperm and egg of their own making and worked at forming babies. But after hundreds and hundreds of attempts, nothing exceedingly worthwhile had come of it. They had been attempting to produce men with psionic abilities valuable as weapons of war. Sometimes they came close, but never did they truly succeed. Then, when the project was finally junked, they had five hundred mutated children on their hands. This was a time when mankind was laying down its weapons for tools of friendship. Most looked upon the wombs as a hideous arm of the war effort that should never have been started in the first place — and they looked upon the Mue children with pity and shame. There was a great public outcry when the government hinted that the Mues might be put quietly and painlessly to sleep. Though some people did not consider them human, the vast majority of the population could not tolerate so horrid a slaughter with the Permanent Peace only months behind them. The Mues lived. In fifteen years, they had equality by law. In another hundred, they had it in reality. And they mated and had more of their kind, although the children were often perfectly normal. Today, there were fourteen million Mues — only an eighth of one percent of the galactic population, but alive and breathing and happy just the same. And Hurkos was one of them.

Fourteen million.

And he could not remember having ever heard of them before.

“Food’s about ready,” he said. Just then the light above the wall slot popped off and the tray slid out.

“Smells good.”

They pulled the tray apart where it was perforated and sat on the floor to eat. “It’s damn eerie,” Hurkos said, spitting the words around a mouthful of synthe-beef. “There should be some